Christ the Redeemer sits next to
a woman wearing glasses; in silence
they watch the Eiffel Tower, Paris,
creak, stumble, and crash to the ground.
Nearby, a TV reporter is clipped
by the blast of an exploding truck
while text messaging his station;
a local radio shock jock, half-blind
with the blood in his eyes, leads a
train of school children like ducklings,
holding one dead child to his chest.
Christ the Redeemer leans over,
whispers something to the woman
wearing glasses – an obscure reference
to Noah, which she doesn't understand –
but she smiles and nods like she does,
because if there's anyone you want to
flirt with during the mass destruction
of the world, it's the son of God.
Past their park bench lumbers a
rhinoceros, wide-eyed with panic,
and somewhere, a storefront television
shows the U.S. President, soot-faced
and more than a little frazzled, saying
Everything Is Under Control. What he
won't say is that the black helicopter
carrying his spoiled son and the First Lady
fell out of the sky somewhere over Wisconsin,
and that his mistress, the one with
the Russian accent, is trapped in a burning
supermarket in London, England.
The woman wearing glasses scoots a little
closer to Christ the Redeemer, pointedly
placing her hand on his sackcloth-covered thigh,
the destroyed city of love simmering around them.
Their eyes meet, and the woman wearing glasses,
with a sigh, realizes that Christ the Redeemer
sees this as just another brother-sister relationship.
He touches her cheek, smiles sadly, and says
"Two streets north, a Buddhist monk has stolen a
stretch limousine. If you hurry, he'll let you on it
and you can get out before the earthquake."
He kisses her forehead, and then Christ the Redeemer
is gone, well on his way to shattering
Saint Peter's Basilica.